iPhone 5: Restoring Camera Roll from iCloud Backup.

When restoring all data from iCloud Backup, Camera Roll never finished downloading. It was stuck at 5 out of 715. How can I restore Camera Roll from iCloud Backup now that the initial "start up" Restore is complete?

Not going as expected. The phone is stuck on the Restoring From Backup screen. It just says, "Restoring Settings", the blue bar has not moved at all AND Time Remaining keeps increasing. It is now up to 5 hrs. I cannot go to the Photo App at all, as indicated in ezjules' post. Any thoughts? I feel fairly confident my Wifi is working fine because I am using my iPad to post to this site.

You wouldn't be able to open the Photos app before the device restarts and begins the "background" phase of restoring, during which you can use the phone. I'm not sure why you are having problems restoring your settings; this "foreground" phase of restoring does not normally take very long to complete.

Although Apple recommends against interrupting a restore during the foreground phase, if you're convinced it's hung you may have to by resetting it and trying again. If the problem persists, you could either try restoring your phone, then restoring the backup again or making an appointment at the Genius Bar at a nearby Apple store to have them take a look at it (although I suspect they would restore the phone too).

So I did give up and interrupted the foreground phase. I also decided to pick a different backup file (one from 2 nights ago vs. the one I did in the store at Best Buy). The foreground phase completed much faster (about 5-6 min). I was then able to goto camera roll and see 3 pics have downloaded and it said (and still says) Downloading 3 of 701. It is just stuck. Basically SAME EXACT problem that I saw today after they did the original restore at Best Buy. When I looked at my phone after dinner, I noticed no more than a few pictures were in my camera roll and it just said downloading X of XXX. Not very happy with Apple right now. Especially after seeing all of these similar posts. Thank you just the same for yor advice. Do I need to rate your responses somehow?

I suppose you could try on a different wifi network, such as at a friend's house just to eliminate that as a variable. You could also make an appointment with the Genius bar at a nearby Apple store and have them try it on their wifi network.

Unfortunately, there are numerous posts from people encountering problems restoring photos from iCloud backups. I always recommend importing photos regularly to your computer rather than relying on the backup, as explained here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083. I know this doesn't help you at this point, but may in the future.

Randers4, I did do a backup on iTunes today as well. It is not on my own computer, but it is on my mom-in-law's. I logged into my iTunes acct while on her MacMini. Then I did a Backup and it is on her HD. However, how do I get the Backup without it syncing to iTunes incorrectly? I saw that was a mentioned concern in ezjules' post.

On another note, in one last hope attempt, I did what someone else posted a few after ezjules' posts. I turned off the phone and turned it back on. It continued to download and about two more photos appeared. So I waited awhile and turned it off again and several more did. At this time about 40 pics &amp; videos (combined total) have downloaded. It is taking forever even though we have Cox Premium internet (25Mb download, 12Mb upload) and no one else is on their phone or iPads right now.

Don't know if it would do any good, but you could try power-cycling your wireless router (unplugging it for 15 seconds, then plugging it back in), resetting network settings on your phone (in Settings>General>Reset), and changing the router's DNS settings to use Google's public DNS (see https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using) to see if you have any better success.

I would restore to the iTunes backup only as a last resort. You could try going to iTunes Preferences>Devices and checking "Prevent...from syncing automatically". Then connecting your phone and attempting to restore the backup but I suspect when you connect it will prompt you to restore from backup or restore as new, and if you choose restore from backup after backing up your phone will restart and begin syncing anyway. I suppose when this happened you could cancel the process by clicking ths "x" in the iTunes status window and you may be good to go, but I'm not sure.

Got my photos &amp; videos back into camera roll! I woke this morning and all 701 were there. This is a few less than the most recent backup had, but good enough. So, there were a few things flakey about my experience restoring from iCloud. Therefore as many, including yourself have noted, iCloud IS ABSOLUTELY NOT A TRUSTED METHOD for backing up, storing or restoring photos &amp; videos. If your photos &amp; videos are important to you, backup to your computer at regular intervals.

2: When the most recent backup failed, I went to the next one available (2 days old)

3: When the Photo App displaying X of XXX images downloading in camera roll got hung up on the first few images, I powered down the phone and it resumed downloading more. However, it hung up 2 more times and then proceeded while I went to bed.

4: Phone was plugged into A/C outlet entire time, no incoming or outgoing phone calls or texts.

I am no longer going to back up photos or videos to the cloud. I will also cancel my additional storage capacity on iCloud. Why pay for secure storage that is so flakey?!?

Does anyone know how to retrieve the deleted photos (taken last night and accidentally deleted early this morning)? I just got the new iphone5 and I forgot to sign in to iCloud so I dont have a back-up.

Not sure if this was your issue too, but mine was apparently stuck on passwords missing from a mail acct and Starbucks app. Once I found those and cleaned up the passwords the camera roll resumed downloading

I had a similar problem where it seemed to be stuck on downloading a picture. I ended up resetting the iPhone (not a hard reset), and it seemed to work from there overnight (though I wasn't actively monitoring the restore proces).

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